Have you ever heard anyone make a comment like, “Well, if the world keeps heading the way it’s headed, we’re cooked!”

In my pastor’s Sunday sermon yesterday, he similarly observed, “You’ll hear old people say, ‘The world’s going to hell in a hand basket.’ But do you notice it never does get there? . . . One of the marvelous things about generations is that when one generation goes one way, the next generation swings the other way. You see that with your kids don’t you? Everything you want, they do the opposite.

“That’s the wonderful thing about having grandchildren. There’s a lot of truth to the saying, ‘Grandkids are God’s rewards for not killing your own kids.’ You realize things don’t stay the same because the next generation bends that line and ultimately it becomes a circle.”

Just like human lives have a cyclical nature, so do nations. According to my pastor (Richard Jordan of Shorewood Bible Church, Rolling Meadows, Ill.) our country is now in a “winter cycle.” (Editor’s Note: To read about this concept, click on “Back Issues” and scroll down to the article, “In the Midst of Winter,” dated Sept. 2, 2004).

Today, American kids are being solicited as never before by the country’s media (TV, movies, music industry, internet, advertising, on and on) to choose darkness.

The horrific ramifications of their insidious marketing campaign for the devil has not even really been made apparent yet.

In the Bible, it’s satanic captivity that is described as ‘the horror of great darkness.’ Exodus 10:21 talks of a “darkness over the land of Egypt, even darkness which may be felt.”

Jordan explains, “Have you ever been in a place where there was darkness you could feel? You can’t get that around Chicago because there’s too much light.”

There are two kinds of darkness—physical darkness and spiritual darkness.

When Jesus Christ was on the Cross, it says in Luke 23:45 that “the sun was darkened.” That’s physical, obviously, but a little earlier in Luke 22:53, when “Jesus said unto the chief priests, and captains of the temple, and the elders, which were come to him,” that “this is your hour, and the power of darkness,” He’s talking about spiritual darkness.

“Notice there’s a power, an authority—somebody who’s ruling darkness,” explains Jordan.

In John 1:4-5, it says about Christ, “In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.”

“This is one of those strange verses in the Bible,” explains Jordan. “When you come into a room and the light’s off, the room’s dark but you know how to get rid of the dark—you simply turn on the light. There’s a darkness, however, that when you turn on the light, it doesn’t go away, and that’s spiritual darkness.”

The Bible says Jesus Christ ‘came unto his own’ who were in spiritual darkness. He said to them, ‘I’m the light of the world,’ but ‘His own received Him not.’

The darkness didn’t go away because they were under the authority and power of a spiritual darkness.

That’s why Paul says in Col. 1:13, referring to God, “Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son.’

Likewise, Paul writes in II Cor. 4: 3-4, “But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.”

“You get started on this stuff about light and darkness and the verses just come one after another,” says Jordan. “Paul says in II Cor. 4:6, ‘For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.’ Right in the middle of our darkness and our slavery to satanic authority, He caused the light to shine. How’d He do it? By the gospel.

“That’s why in Ephesians 6, he says, ‘We wrestle not against flesh and blood but the rulers of the darkness of this world.’ That’s the angelic host that rules and regulates and runs the spiritual darkness that covers this planet today.

“That’s why you can’t affect social, economic, political justice and change in this world by focusing on the physical—the political, economic, social systems. There’s a spiritual thing that runs all of them! And when you wrestle against flesh and blood, you’re not in the real battle. You’re fighting the dust; the symptoms.

“It’s like the old story about the Indian out west. The people hadn’t had rain in about three years and this fellow came into town and said, ‘I’m going to do a rain dance and get rain.’ And the old Indian chief went down to watch him and came back home and his wife asked, ‘Well, what happened?’ He answered, ‘Big wind, lot of dust, no rain.’ That’s saying, ‘Big wind, lot of dust, no substance.’ ”